Gunder Hagg, the Swedish runner who held the world record for the mile from 1945 until 1954, when Roger Bannister ran the first sub-4-minute mile, died Nov. 27 at a nursing home in Malmo, Sweden. He was 85.

Mr. Hagg set 13 world records in races from 1,500 meters to six miles. From 1942 to 1945, he and his best friend, Arne Andersson, alternated in trimming the record for the mile five times, and tied it once, starting with Mr. Hagg's time of 4 minutes, 6.2 seconds and ending with his 4:01.4.

In May 1954, Bannister, then an English medical student, ran the mile in 3:59.4, an event so historic that U.S. television and radio stations interrupted live coverage of the Army-McCarthy congressional hearings to report the news. The current mile record, 3:43.13, was set in 1999 by Hicham el-Guerrouj of Morocco.

In an era of strict amateurism, Swedish track officials suspended Mr. Hagg twice for accepting appearance fees. Speaking at a meeting of the New York Track Writers Association in 1987, Mr. Hagg told of his run-ins with the defenders of amateurism.

In 1941, Mr. Hagg said, he was suspended for accepting 67 Swedish kronor, about $10 now. In 1945, he was suspended a second time and never competed again.

"I never asked for any money to run," he said later. "The presidents of clubs always called me and asked, 'Gunder, can you come if we pay you so much?' If the amount was too small, I didn't answer. That was taken as a sign that I wanted more, and they would increase it, so my style was to be quiet as long as possible."

Mr. Hagg said the most he ever received for one race was 1,000 kronor, and the most he ever made in a year from working and running was the equivalent of $7,000. Today, a handful of runners who are the caliber of el-Guerrouj routinely receive six-figure appearance fees.

Mr. Hagg was born Dec. 31, 1918, five minutes before the new year began. His family was poor, and he quit school early to work full time.

At age 17, and at 5 feet 11 inches and 150 pounds, he raced for the first time. In 1974, he told Track & Field News: "I had to cycle 30 kilometers to the stadium, and I got there just in time. I won two races and the next day jumped on my bike and rode home again."

Later, his races with Andersson excited the track world.

"My first intention was to beat him," Mr. Hagg once said. "Really, it was a pity we had to run under such circumstances. Otherwise, with each other's help, we could have run much faster, maybe below 4 minutes for the mile.

"But the people went to the stadiums to see our fight. The organizers did nothing to make our confrontations seem human. We were always supposed to hate each other, to fight like hell and beat the world record on top of it all. Of course, we were well paid for it. That's why I was disqualified, but that is another story."

In 1943, Mr. Hagg toured the United States and won seven of eight races. In the winter of 1944, he lost three indoor races in New York and Chicago to Jim Rafferty of New York, who brushed off the accomplishment, saying, "The war was on, he had to travel two weeks on a freighter zigzagging across the Atlantic, and he arrived two days before our first race."

Into his 70s, Mr. Hagg ran against Andersson every June in a 6-kilometer race in Sweden.

"I walk or run the race very slowly," Mr. Hagg said. "I also bring coffee and a sandwich with me."

Mr. Hagg is survived by his wife, Daisy, and a son, Gunder Jr., a sales manager for a Swedish custom-brokerage company in New York.